Magical Disappearing Cervix
Everything tastes off. My sore throat went from being vaguely hurty the past few months to being an actual genuine owie.
You’ll be happy to hear that my pap smear is over for another year. I hear your cheering. I won’t mention that my cervix was hard to find. I have a magic disappearing cervix that pops in and out of sight. Hello! I’m your cervix and now I’m over here! I can’t remember this ever being a problem before. I also won’t mention that she had to take out, insert and crrrrrank open the speculum FOUR times to find it. I mean, why mention that? It might make you uncomfortable.
Beyond the pap, my physical included a tippytap on the cleavage side of each breasts not lasting longer the .4 seconds, a visual peering moment at my neck and the question ‘Are you regular?’ I asked her ‘Do you mean pooping?’ No reflexes. No breathing deep. No looking for swelling around my ankles. No groping to find lumps in my breasts. Not even a tickle. No looking in my throat or actually, you know, touching it. Or in my ears. No asking how I feel. Because she knows. She read my lab results so she already knows that I’m fine. Even if I’m not, she knows I am. I’ve decided she must have super powers. She can see inside my body with her ultrasonic vision and hear my heart with her supersonic hearing. When I asked ‘So, that’s it? That’s the physical?’ She laughed and did a soft-shoe out the exam room door. Ya-cha-cha-cha-cha.
From her complete and thorough looking at my neck, she decided I no longer needed an ultrasound on my thyroid. I mean, she totally looked at it for like 2 seconds. With her eyes because you look with your eyes, stupid, not your hands. I asked her if I could get one anyway, since I actually used my fingers to touch my neck and it has been sore for so long and she said, ‘No. You don’t need one. Last week’s blood tests showed you are back within range. You’re good.’
Well, thanks! Awesome! I’m .2 within the top part of the range and so I’m good. I then told her I’d like a referral to an endocrinologist to which she frowned and looked doubtful. I did my best, listing off all my siblings and my extended family history in an effort to help her understand that I REALLY WANT TO GO TO SOMEONE ELSE. She nodded, pretended to listen, jotted down ‘family history thyroid’ on my chart, um-hummed a few times, checked her watch and said, ‘I’ll request it and see if you qualify for one. Don’t get your hopes up.’
She’s my favorite. With or without her referral, I’m going to someone else. It’s just that ‘with’ we still get to eat food. Not being able to afford food – not so fun.
Screw republican, democrat, independent, black, white, female, male or vegetable. I’m voting for the person with the strongest medical reform in their platform.
